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Translated from the Greek original by Frederick Crombie.
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 35
Chapter LXX.
If Celsus, indeed, had understood our teaching regarding the Spirit of God, and had known that "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God," [4640] he would not have returned to himself the answer which he represents as coming from us, that "God put His own Spirit into a body, and sent it down to us;" for God is perpetually bestowing of His own Spirit to those who are capable of receiving it, although it is not by way of division and separation that He dwells in (the hearts of) the deserving. Nor is the Spirit, in our opinion, a "body," any more than fire is a "body," which God is said to be in the passage, "Our God is a consuming fire." [4641] For all these are figurative expressions, employed to denote the nature of "intelligent beings" by means of familiar and corporeal terms. In the same way, too, if sins are called "wood, and straw, and stubble," we shall not maintain that sins are corporeal; and if blessings are termed "gold, and silver, and precious stones," [4642] we shall not maintain that blessings are "corporeal;" so also, if God be said to be a fire that consumes wood, and straw, and stubble, and all substance [4643] of sin, we shall not understand Him to be a "body," so neither do we understand Him to be a body if He should be called "fire."
[4640] Rom. viii. 14.
[4641] Cf. Heb. xii. 29.
[4642] Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 12.
[4643] pasan ousian.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/contra-celsum-4.asp?pg=35
